Premeditation
by Amatara
Summary: Dale Cooper always has a plan. This once, Albert even falls for it.


Albert is on his twelfth or so coffee of the night, opening up his fifth body with three more to go, and to be honest, it's all starting to feel like a bit of a blur. The coffee gets worse by the hour and so do the bodies, he'd swear, but then that could just be him, just a side-effect of his mounting frustration. He'll manage, of course. It's not that he hasn't pulled all-nighters before. Some were on less sleep than this one, and with corpses in worse shape, too. This time at least they're all pretty recent, which means the smell is vile but at least he can pry some useful evidence from them. Trust Dale Cooper to track down a freaking killer's den before most of them have even realized there _is_ a serial killer on the loose. And, speaking of the devil –

"Need a refill?" Cooper asks. He's just appeared in the doorway like the caffeine harbinger, a full coffee pot in one raised hand and a cup in the other.

"Fuck, yes," Albert mutters. He points at the thermos bottle at his elbow and his own half-empty cup beside it. "Before this stuff starts multiplying in front of my eyes."

Cooper's mouth creeps up at the corners. "You might be on to something here, Albert. Didn't they discover penicillin in a Petri dish of week-old coffee?"

"I hate to disappoint you." Albert finds himself stifling a smirk. "Though I wouldn't be too surprised if you _could_." And – laughing at jokes of that caliber? Crap. He's got to be more tired than he thought.

Cooper unscrews the cap from his thermos and obligingly carries it over to the sink. "So, Albert, have you made any progress?"

"Thought I was." Just in time, Albert stops himself from scrubbing bloodied knuckles across his nose. He strips off the gloves and chucks them into the bin, or tries to; one goes in, the other one sails clean over. "Preliminary report's on the table, I got the rest on tape. I'd tell you what it says, if I only could remember." That's a joke too, but then again, not quite. On a night like this one, autopilot's bound to kick in sooner or later, and it seems like it's gonna be sooner rather than later this time. "Don't worry. It'll come back to me," he grunts, joining Cooper at the sink to wash his hands. "That coffee is all I need."

He's done with his hands and is splashing his face when he registers the weird look on Cooper's face. Not _weird_ weird, just plain weird, but clearly directed at him and therefore unwise to ignore.

"What?" he says, not bothering to hide his irritation.

Cooper's eyebrows knot together. "Albert – you should take a break."

He gulps back another _what_, before attempting a more than monosyllabic answer. "Cooper, in case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of in the middle of something here –"

"That you are, Albert, but you still need a break, and so do I." His voice is firm, and his eyes glitter in the harsh artificial light. "Unless you have a better idea, I vote we go for a drive."

Albert gives up. "I'm sorry?_"_

"Ten minutes, Albert. Just enough to get your focus back. There's a guard out front, so no need to worry about these bodies, they're perfectly safe here. Now, come on."

He'll never know how Cooper does it, he won't. What he wants to reply is it's the most ridiculous idea he's heard in his life, and for someone used to dealing with Cooper on a daily – _and_ nightly – basis, that's saying something. What he ends up replying is "Fine," in a tone that makes it clear he doesn't think so, but Cooper doesn't seem to care. The end result is that a few minutes later, he finds himself in the passenger seat of Cooper's car, scowling at the ceiling as they speed through the night.

He jolts back to awareness with Cooper's hand on his thigh. That in itself's less unexpected than the surroundings – they're still in the city, obviously, but a corner of it he doesn't recognize. A little park in between buildings, barely lit and not a soul in sight. Cooper's put the car into a tiny parking space, facing what looks like a miniature pond with ducks paddling dopliy in the beam of the headlights.

"Coop?" he grunts, and then, "Where the hell are we, the local animal farm?"

"I discovered this place just this week." Cooper is peering out through the windshield, a grin splitting his face. "I meant to show you earlier, but I didn't get the chance. Isn't' it incredible, how animal life adapts to the city? These birds –"

"For Christ's sake, Cooper, if you brought me all the way down here just to listen to a lecture about biodiversity –"

He drops silent. Cooper's sliding a hand up his arm, tweaking open his upper shirt button.

"Not exactly, Albert," he murmurs. He's still wearing that same goofy grin, but right now, there's a decidedly impish edge to it. "We came here to take a break, didn't we? And correct me if I'm wrong, but… I don't believe we've ever tried this in a car before."

He isn't that far gone yet that he needs to ask what _this_ might be. Instead, he sighs and mutters, "Honestly, Coop, if you think what you're attempting is gonna prove beneficial to my concentration, think again." But it's a half-hearted sigh, growing even more half-hearted when Cooper's hand sneaks inside his shirt, palm nestling into the hollow at his throat.

Albert shivers; it's freezing outside, and soon it'll be freezing in here too. The engine's only been off a minute, but already his breath is leaving small puffs of vapor in the air. Cooper's face is flushed, expectant, his lips chapped and bright red with the cold, and a throb of heat due south signals Albert's appreciation of the sight.

In an impulse, ignoring the seat belt cutting into his shoulder, he darts in and covers those lips with his own.

The noise Cooper makes is half surprise, half undisguised approval. But he responds with an enthusiasm that's pure Cooper, fingers raking the back of Albert's scalp as he drags his mouth down Cooper's jaw. There's a brief wriggling movement outside his field of vision that involves Cooper's free hand, then a _click_, and Cooper's leaning back to get rid of his seat belt. Albert curses and, with stiff fingers, unbuckles his own.

Not a second later, Cooper's switched off the lights.

Albert freezes mid-lunge, disoriented by the sudden darkness. He's never been so aware of the sound of his own breathing, harsh and way too fast to leave him with any illusions about his lung capacity _or_ the effectiveness of Cooper's tactics. He can't see a damn thing but he can feel plenty, can feel the heat coming off Cooper's body in waves, and he can hear himself panting against what he knows to be Cooper's mouth. Cooper's breathing is slow and deep and only slightly hitching, and just listening to it is enough to make Albert's head spin.

"Care to tell me why –" he rasps, and Cooper gives a low chuckle.

"A precaution, Albert. What we're doing still counts as public indecency, I'm afraid." Pause. "That is, if you want to…"

Albert groans. "God, yes."

He'd undo Cooper's fly but he can't find his bearings, and so he just does his own, twisting in his seat till he can push himself up to his knees. It's not a novelty, this, it's a fucking exercise in _logistics_, the dashboard much too close for comfort, the roof too low and Cooper too far away, and he still can't see a hand in front of his face. By the time he thinks he's good to go, he's just about ready to ditch the car and start rolling around in the muck outside.

Reaching out, he's expecting Cooper's gun holster still at his hip, but instead all he finds is the smooth edge between fabric and skin.

"In the back seat," Cooper breathes, doing that mind-reading thing that Albert hates as much during sex as when they're on duty. Though technically speaking, they're still on duty now, too.

"This was entirely premeditated, wasn't it?" he pants back. He slides two fingers under the elastic band of Cooper's boxers and gives an exploratory tug, then slips the rest of his hand inside.

Cooper's back arches slightly, but his voice is perfectly clear while he's pulling down Albert's pants. "Albert, when have you known me not to be?"

"How about never?" he mutters, but he can't keep his own voice steady when Cooper's thumb finds _that_ spot and starts rubbing it up and down in smooth, solid strokes. Something's pressing up against his thigh, the handbrake most likely, and he swallows back a too-gratuitous joke before just settling on a curse, trying to back away from the blasted thing without losing his rhythm. He wants to come so bad it hurts, and Cooper, probably reading his mind again, picks up his pace.

Cooper beats him to it by seconds, his only warning a cracked whimper before his own balls spasm and he collapses, with a groan, in Cooper's arms.

Afterwards they just sit in silence, having salvaged their suits and dumped the towel Cooper so prudently brought – premeditated, all of it – in the trunk. The ducks look none the wiser to what's just happened, but Albert's head is blessedly clear when Cooper turns the key and drives them back to civilization, and duty.

The best antidote for death is to feel alive. If there's one thing Cooper has taught him, it's that.


End file.
